


you were made for the breaking of my back

by orphan_account



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-14
Updated: 2011-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-14 18:29:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn’t ask because he cares, because he’s selfish and he wants this and he thinks Eduardo does too, no, he <i>knows</i> it, and that’s enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you were made for the breaking of my back

Mark’s never craved touch, like some people. Never wanted it at all, mostly. He’d gotten his daily allotment from Eduardo, a hand on his shoulder as he offers a beer, a hand placed on top of Mark’s on his laptop when his eyes have gone unfocused from hours of staring into the light. Mark barely noticed that he was doing it, eventually, became so used to those hands, the nudge of Eduardo’s shoulder against his, the way the curve of Eduardo’s mouth in a smile eventually became a touch on its own.

He’s the one that shifts things into something else. He should repeat that, because it’s so uncharacteristic of him, of Eduardo, of everything they were and are: he started it. He’s not observant, not towards the things that don’t matter, but Eduardo mattered. Eduardo matters.

He’s the one who turns in his chair when Eduardo’s sending him to bed like a mother hen, past the inception of thefacebook and close enough to the cannibal chicken that calling Eduardo a mother hen would make him flinch. Maybe it’s only funny in Mark’s head, but he doesn’t think so.

He doesn’t say it, though he thinks it, and the filter between his brain and his mouth is unfamiliar, the words trapped between his teeth. Eduardo looks pale, lit only by the lamp beside Mark’s desk, and it creates shadows out of his eyes, only hollows where Mark looks at him. Mark puts his hands on Eduardo’s hips, fingers curling in his belt loops, because he wants to. Because he knows Eduardo wants to, knows the sounds he makes a stall away and the way he looks when he thinks Mark is in too deep to notice him watching.

He knows Eduardo wants to, but he can’t see his goddamn eyes. He doesn’t ask, because it would be undignified. He doesn’t ask, because if Eduardo says no, then something will be broken, something Mark cares about enough to be afraid of snapping. He doesn’t ask because he cares, because he’s selfish and he wants this and he thinks Eduardo does too, no, he _knows_ it, and that’s enough.

“Mark,” Eduardo says, and that’s it. Just his name, sounding a little off, an intonation no one’s ever used for his name before, and Mark unzips Eduardo’s pants because he can. He takes him out and he focuses on the weight and the taste of him, the hitch of Eduardo’s breath exactly the same as he remembers it.

When Eduardo comes in his mouth, Mark spits it on the floor. Eduardo’s the one who cleans it up later, he guesses. He never thinks to ask.

Eduardo returns the favour, and he swallows, because he never liked a mess.

*

That’s a first, and maybe it sends a trend, Mark making messes and Eduardo cleaning them up, Mark giving into temptation and Eduardo trying to hold back, his hands always shaking.

It turns into something, some definition of something, Eduardo’s hand still on his shoulder, still on his hand, but also unbuttoning his shirt when his eyes can barely stay open from a coding binge, also wrapping around his cock, his mouth against Mark’s, muffling the sounds he made.

It turns into something, he doesn’t know what, except Eduardo was always there, it seems like, and he’ll always be there, except there was a time before Eduardo and there will be a time after him, and Mark didn’t know that in time, couldn’t stop it from happening. He doesn’t know whether it would have made a difference if he had tried.

And then Mark’s looking at him across a room stuffed with people they’re paying, that they can pay for, and it isn’t like Mark doesn’t recognize him, it isn’t quite that, but maybe Mark’s never quite seen that look in his eyes, and he isn’t quite sure what to make of it.

They pull through the weeks of it, the drag of it, and they open their mouths and neither ever says anything about what they were, what that something that Mark never had a name for, what that was, and why it would make any difference at all. They pull through the weeks of it, and the only time Eduardo touches Mark is his shoulder brushing against Mark’s as he leaves an elevator. Mark’s practically stinging with the lack.

Them not mentioning it, it isn’t a lie, just omission on both of their parts, because it doesn’t matter, really, that Mark would sometimes code in the cramped quarters of his bed, and Eduardo would be asleep beside him, fingers curled around Mark’s t-shirt, because it was the closest thing in reach, and when it came to Mark, Eduardo was always clutching, like there was something he needed to hold onto.

He can’t relate the Eduardo who expects him to leak things out of malice with the one who would make popcorn and then drag him from his computer to watch terrible movies with him, who threw the popcorn at the screen with him, and who later pinned him to the couch and traced Mark’s name against his clavicle with his tongue.

And he can’t describe events in the context of “this is when I thought I was in love with him, before I realised he was just a rock that my back was propped up against, before he realised I was a rock that he kept pushing up a mountain” or “this is when the weight was gone, and I was free-wheeling in the air and he didn’t feel like Sisyphus anymore.”

Eduardo meets his eye, and it isn’t like there isn’t anything there, but there is the quiet knowledge of someone who lost the weight on his chest and realised how deep the breaths he never took were. It isn’t like there’s nothing there, but it’s close.

They lie, sins of omission, because the truth is old and stale and it doesn’t mean anything anymore. It doesn’t mean a goddamn thing.


End file.
